Power of the Press

Bring letterpress printing to your community!

Minnesota Center for Book Arts travels to libraries and community centers to put the power of print in the hands of the people.

Individuals or group leaders choose a word or short phrase inspired by the goals of the group. Then they compose their words with wood type, ink and print their message on a press, and display their posters.

Letterpress printing has empowered people to connect and communicate with others since the invention of movable type in China (Northern Song dynasty, 1041) and Korea (Goryeo dynasty, 1377), and the printing press in Germany (1440). More recently, activists and artists have used printing methods and equipment to empower movements and express personal narratives around the world.

MCBA has an extensive type collection, with wood type available in several languages including unique character sets for Arabic and Hebrew, along with English language character sets and diacritic marks to print in Spanish, Swedish, and many more languages. We’re seeking funding to grow our wood type collection to increase access to this art form.

Find Us at Your Local Library!

Look for upcoming Power of the Press sessions at Hennepin County libraries here. To request MCBA’s Power of the Press at a library in your area, contact your library directly.

For more information about Power of the Press, contact Laura Brown, Partnership Coordinator and Resident Instructor, at lbrown@mnbookarts.org or 612-215-2529.

  • Seeing our languages in print, I had the sense we were stepping through time. At the time those presses were initially in use, our languages were excluded from them. So to see our languages move through the press was powerful."

    - Melanie Merle
    Indigenous Nations Poets (In-Na-Po) Fellow

  • Kalehua Kim (In-Na-Po Fellow) found that she “reclaimed a part of myself while connecting my language to the languages of my peers and colleagues in In-Na-Po.” The activity represented, “a physical embodiment of a connection to an oral tradition.”

  • Reconnecting with my Jewish heritage—even though I am only half Jewish—and connecting that to book arts was a great combination.”